#rsrh Charlotte Watch: Letting Clinton be Clinton.

I was wondering how Bill planned to sabotage Obama last night; turned out, according to Jim Geraghty, it was by Clinton being… Clinton.

As the sections continued, it became clear that this is what Bill Clinton lives for — how he misses the excitement, the attention, the power. . . . The presidency is like a drug, and while I’m sure his post-presidential life has its perks — though he is a vegan now — nothing is quite like having an arena full of adoring fans, hanging on your every word, ready to applaud and cheer your every utterance. The two-term limit is the only thing that is keeping him from running again.

And the speech just kept going.

The parts that I listened to were very well done, speaking strictly rhetorically – I particularly enjoyed the spectacle of Bill Clinton making the crowd cheer and applaud George W Bush, which should tell you everything that you need to know about Clinton’s ability to deliver a speech.  But I got bored listening to him talking about those rascally hardcore right-wingers Romney and Ryan running the GOP right now, mostly because I couldn’t even take it seriously.  In eight years, assuming that (God willing) Bill Clinton’s still around, he’ll be right back there on the Democratic podium and asking why the latest candidate can’t be more like that nice President Romney*.  Just business, in other words; nothing personal.  Which is fine; but if it isn’t personal then there’s no real need for me to stay engaged, once I got what I came for.

Still: nice gambit by Bill Clinton, there.  Suck every drop of energy out of the room, drink it down… and then grin at Barack Obama, who showed up at the last minute (and thoroughly snarling access to the convention in the process**). It’s so nice to see an expert at his craft…

Moe Lane

*Whether Clinton will say similarly nice things about Paul Ryan will be largely dependent on whether Ryan’s running for President.

**Which thoroughly pissed off the media, who got caught up in all of that themselves.  Wow but Barack Obama is an incompetent at the practical details of campaigning.